About

Dr. Kelley’s research focuses on the preparation and development of school leaders, and teacher evaluation and compensation as elements of strategic human resources management in schools. She is co-author with James J. Shaw of the book "Learning First! A School Leader’s Guide to Closing Achievement Gaps" (Corwin Press, 2009), which shows principals how to approach their leadership to promote student learning and close achievement gaps.

Other publications include the book "Paying Teachers for What They Know and Do: New and Smarter Compensation Strategies to Improve Schools" (Corwin Press, 2002, co-authored with Allan Odden), and numerous articles on teacher compensation, evaluation, and leader preparation and professional development. She also recently completed a five-year project funded by the Wallace Foundation to document mastery in urban school leadership, and to build distributed instructional leadership in urban comprehensive high schools.